


the turning of the tides

by fishpoets



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Haircuts, M/M, Wave Hanzo, taking a chance on commitment and emotional vulnerability: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 15:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20819744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishpoets/pseuds/fishpoets
Summary: The end of summer doesn't have to mean the end of summer love.(Or, Hanzo goes for a swim, has a haircut, and feels a lot of feelings.)





	the turning of the tides

**Author's Note:**

> i have A Lot of Emotions about hanzo and the ocean and also hanzo's hair, and honestly this fic was just an excuse to indulge in both (no i'm still not over wave hanzo)
> 
> it wasn't meant to be this long but. honestly? i could've gone on much longer with the hair thing. l-lol. don't judge me, we all have our needs
> 
> anyway that's enough prattling from me. enjoy! <3

“Your hair's gettin' long.”

Hanzo paused, fingers still buried in the wet length where he’d been raking it back into place. Jesse was correct, it seemed; his hair now reached a few inches past his collarbones, which meant it would be longer still at the back. For some reason this surprised him. His hair hadn't been so long since…

It had been a long time.

“That is what usually happens, yes,” he muttered, when no other response came to him. He resumed smoothing it as best he could into place – sand and saltwater seemed to bring his hair's natural coarse texture to the fore no matter how conditioned it had been to begin with. “Are you implying I look dishevelled?”

From the corner of his eye he could just about see the rise and fall of Jesse's chest as he chuckled. “Wouldn't dream of it,” Jesse said lowly.

“Hm.”

He gathered his hair into three locks. A braid, he decided. It would suffice in keeping the hair back and out of his way without putting too much strain on the wet strands, while still being long and loose in the manner that had obviously grabbed Jesse's attention.

How many years had it been since he last wore a braid? Too many to remember. For the last decade or so he’d only bothered with his hair enough to shear the ends with a sharp knife and tie it up out of his face, a silken ribbon his only concession to any sort of style. It was only recently – very recently – that things had started to change.

Still, no matter how long it had been, his fingers remembered what to do. They deftly wove the three locks together, over, under, over.

All the while Jesse's focus felt like a physical caress, hot and bright as the Gibraltan sun.

The water dripping down Hanzo’s torso tickled as it evaporated under the afternoon heat. It made him even more hyper-aware of how bare he was. It was nonsensical – he and Jesse had fallen into bed several times by now, and Jesse had seen far more of Hanzo then than he was seeing now. There was no reason sitting on the beach in swimshorts that reached halfway down his thighs should make him feel so… so…

…Self-conscious. Ridiculous, but he could not deny it. The only difference he could think of was that they weren't in private. There were other people around.

It didn’t negate the hot spark of thrill that ran through his blood at knowing Jesse’s gaze was so fixed upon him. He may have flexed as he leaned back on his palms. Maybe. Just a little.

Jesse whistled a low, appreciative note. “Y'know, I'm feelin' a touch upstaged here, what with you lookin' like Poseidon comin' out the water n' me just layin' here like a bloated hotdog some poor kid dropped from their lunchbox.”

Hanzo glanced over at him. Jesse was sprawled on his back on his red palm-print towel. He'd been sunbathing – dozing – with a cheap straw hat he'd picked up who knew where over his face to block the light (when Hanzo had asked earlier why he didn't just wear his usual Stetson, Jesse had protested with great vehemence about not getting sand in the leather, so he'd wisely let the subject drop). He had propped himself up on his elbows when Hanzo approached, and tipped the hat up, watching Hanzo lazily from under the brim.

His limbs were long and muscular, his torso thick, skin warm and brown and glistening with a fine film of sweat, and his relaxed, indolent pose brought to Hanzo's mind all sorts of other recent activities which had left Jesse in a similar state. It was… enticing.

Hanzo wanted to touch.

And he could, now. He reached out, palm hovering for a moment before it dropped to cup the strong curve of muscle and fat that graced Jesse's hip. He stroked across Jesse's lower stomach, abdominals jumping beneath his hand as he circled around Jesse's bellybutton, scratched his nails through the trail of coarse, dark brown hair that burrowed down under the waistband of Jesse's own swimshorts.

Jesse's breath hitched.

A loud burst of laughter startled Hanzo back to himself. Hand whipping away he twisted to see over his shoulder. The others were gathered around the cooler, watching a volleyball match: Hana and Lucio vs. Ana and Morrison – a lot of people, but they were all further down the beach. Not one of them was paying any attention to him or Jesse. He released a long, slow breath through his teeth, willing his heartbeat to settle, and rested his hand back on Jesse, who had fallen still. His palm spread across the vulnerable curve at the base of Jesse’s ribs; beneath his skin Jesse’s own heartbeat was deep and steady.

Hanzo exhaled again, and changed course for the thick tufts of hair that grew liberally on Jesse's chest. “Your hair is growing long too, it seems,” he murmured, pinching a few curls between his fingers and tugging lightly.

The faint lines of caution tightening the skin around Jesse’s eyes loosened. “You sayin' I look dishevelled?” he teased, a smirk appearing to dance on his wide lips. “That I need a trim? Maybe I should go ahead n’ shave the whole lot off--”

Hanzo's hand tightened into a protective fist.

Jesse laughed. “No? Nah, didn't think so. You like it too much.”

“..Hm.”

Jesse kept grinning at him for a moment before he scooped up Hanzo's hand. He placed a quick kiss to the backs of Hanzo's fingers and sat up, scooching closer so he was sitting right at Hanzo's side, level with him rather than slightly behind. His long toes wiggled into the sand. With his right hand he played with Hanzo's fingers; the sand dipped and shifted behind Hanzo's back as Jesse rested his other hand there, and leaned in.

His pupils were wide and dark, lids heavy as they dropped from Hanzo's eyes to his lips. Jesse tilted his head, and waited.

Their… _bonding_ was no secret. Hanzo was not ashamed, not of his attraction to this man nor his expressing it. The desire had outlasted the initial spark, had grown from curiosity and base lust into something that sprouted roots and shoots and leaves, flourishing with each new discovery about Jesse McCree. It had become something that simmered warmly in Hanzo's core whenever thought of it passed his mind.

And yet…

There were other people around, and old anxieties were hard to let go.

Jesse had pulled back slightly to watch him. His thumb rubbed slow circles over the tendons and veins on the back of Hanzo's hand; when Hanzo met his eyes again he gave him a soft, lop-sided smile. He squeezed Hanzo's hand gently and tipped in, nudged his nose against Hanzo's temple and placed a kiss to his cheek.

The first cool breeze of encroaching evening sent a shiver whispering over Hanzo’s damp skin.

* * *

Later, when the sky was dark and Hanzo was back in his room in the Watchpoint alone, he scrutinised himself in the bathroom mirror. The heat of Jesse’s palm, where he had laid it at the small of Hanzo's back as they walked up the meandering path to the Watchpoint, was still lingering like a phantom burn. He couldn't decide if it was anxiety or excitement that churned his stomach at the wordless invitation Jesse had offered in the tilt of his head, the line of his body as they stopped outside his door: Did Hanzo want to come in, clean off together?

Hanzo had declined.

It wasn't something they did. When this thing with Jesse had taken a turn for the unexpected – when Hanzo's vaguely defined interest had been unequivocally returned, Hanzo had compartmentalised. To do so had been imperative for the sake of his peace of mind. Or so he had believed. Time with Jesse, as the two of them (whatever they were), was entirely separate from Hanzo’s time spent alone, and his time as an Overwatch agent. Occupying separate mental spaces. Easier to excise should it prove necessary. Hanzo did not know how Jesse was approaching the situation in his own mind; they hadn't spoken about it.

They had kissed for the first time at the beginning of May.

That day Genji and Hanzo had gone out into town, an unspoken acknowledgement of their strange anniversary – both the date they had torn themselves apart, and the beginning of their road to reconciliation. Whether it had been an offhand insinuation that Hanzo looked like their father, emotional exhaustion weakening his control, or simple sibling goading, something had tipped the scales, and Hanzo had been persuaded to give in to the urge for a change that had been itching in him but that he had until that point ignored.

When they returned to the Watchpoint Hanzo had a new titanium barbell through the brdge of his nose, and the greying sides of his hair were shaved down to the skin.

That evening, when he met with McCree for their usual target practice, the gunslinger hadn't been able to take his eyes off Hanzo for a full ten minutes. His sim scores were abysmal. Hanzo, fuelled by so much open, genuine appreciation, had pressed his advantage, and by the end of the night they had each other pressed up against the wall, lips and breath entwined.

After that first, they carried on. They'd been kissing now for months. Nights of developing camaraderie between drinks and movies and marksmanship competitiveness had merged into all of those things, plus regular sex, and outings that Jesse called _dates_ but felt to Hanzo nothing like the arrangements he used to have to sit through when he was young.

  
And then they would return to the Watchpoint, to the odd life they were leading, half in the shadows, half not. Return, and go their separate ways. And the cycle repeated.

Now August had faded into slower, quieter September, the year drifting past its height into autumn, starting the downward slide toward its end. The evenings were drawing in. This year, as every year, Hanzo had been caught off-guard by the earlier fall of darkness. While midday and afternoon still sweated under the visceral touch of the sun, dawn and dusk brought chilling winds in off the sea. At night Hanzo’s room was cold.

The hot flush of summer had come to an end.

He sighed at his reflection: tired, shadowed eyes, silvering hair, his father’s stern brow and his mother’s frown. Forty years old and so little to show for it. He scrubbed his hands over his face and ran them into his hair; it was indeed getting too long, unruly and untidy. It was beginning to form tufts behind his ears, almost deep enough cover his fingers when he sank them into it.

Save for the instances where they came together, his world and Jesse’s were completely distinct. If Jesse wanted to leave, to disappear, he could. With ease.

  
So could Hanzo.

  
The only thing to untangle would be a few tendrils growing from his heart, still seeking the water and the light.

* * *

Even enlightenment and years of living in a monastery couldn’t put a curb on all Genji’s hoarding habits. The surface around his basin was cluttered with products of all shapes and sizes and types; his toothbrush and paste, skin lotions and moisturisers, hair bleach and colourants, styling tools and creams, an abundance of cosmetics despite the fact Genji usually wore his visor outside, as well as the gel he used on his joints and the seams where his synthetic carbon-mesh met his natural skin. Genji brushed some of the bottles aside, sending his armour polish clattering into the basin, to make room for the great array of hair clipper attachments which he scattered before Hanzo. Though most of them were unneeded, since Hanzo was going to have-

“The same as usual?” Genji asked, already picking up the no.1 guide comb and slotting it into place over the blades of the clippers.

“Please.”

Hanzo adjusted the towel over his shoulders and sat down on the chair in front of Genji's bathroom mirror, checking the clips holding up the length of his hair in coils on the top of his head were all secure.

Genji sighed, full of faux lament. “Same, same, always the same. _Anija_, when are you going to let me do anything _fun_ with your hair?”

“Fun? You mean like you did before my university entrance exams, when I trusted you against my better judgement?” Hanzo scowled. “Hm, I think I’ll pass.”

“That was only one time! What about all the others, eh?”

“What others? Don’t– Stop moving the pins, they’re fine where they are. I don’t want you taking off any more up the side than this.”

“Okay okay okay! Geez, if you don't stop fussing I’m gonna shave a dick into the back of your head, see how you like that!”

“Try that and I'll-”

The automatic response – the _threat_, no matter how joking – choked off in his throat. Clicked as he swallowed. For a brief, weighted second both of them were silent, still – and then Genji snorted. He tugged on Hanzo's hair. “We both know how that would end. While you were spending the last decade getting sloppy-drunk in grotty backstreet _izakaya_, _I _was mastering the blade.”

Hanzo’s train of thought had been heading to their last battle, in the hall of Shimada Castle, where Genji’s sword had for a moment pressed a sharp promise of death against his throat, but it was swiftly diverted. “…Did you just meme at me?”

“Hm, pot, kettle?”

“Fuck off. And you know I can't tolerate cheap sake. I’ve only ever patronised backstreet _izakaya_ of the finest quality.”

“Ahaha, yes, yes, only the best for his majesty!”

Genji was finished with half of Hanzo's head when there came a knock at the door, followed by a familiar rolling voice. “Hey, Gen, you in there? Can I ask you-” The voice came closer, and the door was pushed open. Jesse stopped short at the sight of the two brothers staring back at him. “-Oh. Uh. Didn't realise the both of you were in here, sorry 'bout that. I'll leave you be, if y'all're busy-”

Having spent the last several minutes having his hair touched and the sensation of the clippers vibrating on his scalp, Hanzo was feeling a little sleepy. He blinked at Jesse and found himself smiling.

“No problem.” Genji switched off the clippers. The bathroom seemed terribly quiet without the buzzing. “You wished to ask me something?”

Jesse’s cheeks blotched with red. “Oh. Right. Nah, it can wait, don’t worry ‘bout it.” He rocked on his feet, then leant against the doorframe and crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Didn’t realise your brother was the one who keeps you lookin’ all fancy, Han.”

Hanzo shrugged. He resettled in his chair and faced forward again, looking at Jesse in the mirror. “It is easier for him to trim my hair than for me to attempt the back of my head myself,” he said, “or to keep going back into town every few weeks.”

“Easier for you, not for me!” Genji interjected.

“Your point being?”

He huffed a laugh at Genji’s squawk, dodged the half-hearted swipe of his hand. It went unsaid, but the reason he gave for letting Genji cut his hair was only half the truth – the rest, the larger, more important part, was the opportunity it provided for he and his brother to bond. A slice of time portioned out for them to reenact a scene from their teenage years. Despite what he said to Genji, he did remember those ‘other times’. Many different days that over time had all blended into one; memories of bleaching his little brother’s hair over the bathroom sink, leaving the mixture in too long until his spikes turned crispy-dry and brittle. The constant weedling of his brother to play around with Hanzo’s own hair, to dye it blue, to style it – a temptation he secretly contemplated many times but rarely did give in to, and never did he agree to anything drastic.

Perhaps things would have turned out differently, if he had allowed Genji to influence him a little more when they were boys.

Perhaps not.

Jesse’s voice dragged him from the wistful turn of his thoughts. “You fellas mind if I hang around a while and watch?”

A smirk curled over Genji’s lip, there and gone like lightning. “Actually, since you are here, McCree, why don’t you have a go yourself?”

Jesse’s eyes widened. They flicked to Hanzo’s in the mirror then immediately flicked away. He rubbed his palms on his hips. “Sure that’s a good idea?” he questioned, with a chuckle that did less than he probably thought to hide the note of self-deprecation. “I don’t know that I’d be any good at it, wouldn’t wanna mess it all up-”

“You should,” Hanzo blurted. This time when Jesse’s eyes flicked to his, unsure, he held them. “You are deft enough at trimming your own beard, when you choose to do so. This is not so dissimilar.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s on myself! If I screw it up my clumsy ass is the only one affected.”

“At least try.” For reasons he would have been reluctant to examine had someone asked him to, this suddenly seemed far more important than the situation warranted. At Jesse’s obvious hesitation, he urged, “Jesse, it’s fine. I trust you.”

For a minute Jesse was quiet. His long eyelashes dipped, casting shadows over his eyes, and his lips rolled between his teeth. Then he shrugged, not quite achieving nonchalance. “Alright. If y’all insist.”

Genji, who had stepped subtly aside as they spoke – he could be tactful when he wished – gave Jesse a swift yet succinct instruction on what to do, then slipped out. Hanzo felt less guilt than he ought at driving his brother from his own room; the tension between his body and Jesse’s in the small space was too distracting. A sharp, crackling pulse, electric though not entirely sexual, an invisible yet palpable band that tightened and contracted as Jesse’s bulk came to stand behind his chair.

Jesse cleared his throat. He did not speak. He turned the clippers back on; the sudden noise was startlingly loud, cutting through the heavy atmosphere with all the grace and subtlety of a hammer.

Jesse’s hands were large; they cradled Hanzo’s head with agonising care, tilting him gently as he passed the clippers in slow sweeps over the sides of his head and angled around his ears. Each touch made Hanzo’s heart beat heavy and fast, sent tingles quivering to the nerves in his shoulders, his neck, his arms, right down to the base of his spine.

There was a look of such concentration on Jesse’s face; his deep brow lowered and eyes focused, his lips pursed, offset to the right in the way that pulled at his cheek and burrowed a little dimple beneath his beard that was barely visible except up close, if you knew where to look. It was the same expression he wore when working on what he liked to call ‘professional problems’: tracking down marks, maintaining his myriad personas, strategising battle tactics, et cetera. That he would approach this mundane personal grooming task with such a level of dedication and seriousness was… endearing.

A weightlessness swooped in Hanzo’s chest, the same stomach-in-throat sensation of gravity as when he leapt from a building, but without any of the adrenaline or danger. He closed his eyes to shield from it. Doing so brought other sensations to the fore – touch, vibration, sound. Jesse’s slow, deep breaths caressing his skin, ruffling his hair. The tickle of loose hair tufts falling on his shoulders and neck. The puff of air as Jesse blew them away to the floor, the warm swipe of his fingers across Hanzo’s nape. The musky, masculine scent of him. Sandalwood and smoke. The low murmur of his voice as he requested Hanzo move this way and that – a courtesy, given that Hanzo was putty in his hands. Jesse could move him about as he pleased, should he wish to do so. The thought pierced through him – those large hands clamped tight to each side of his head, spanning the curve of his skull, directing him--

“Alright, I think we’re about done here.” Jesse’s voice broke through his daydream; he blinked back to awareness. “Tell me if it needs somethin’ more doing to it.”

He held up a hand mirror so Hanzo could see the back. His free hand came to rest on Hanzo’s shoulder, cupping the breadth of the muscle. Warm and solid. Safe. Sensitised as he was it took a humiliating amount of concentration for Hanzo to wrest his focus from it so he could give Jesse’s work the attention it deserved. Jesse had done almost as good a job as Genji did – and though it may have taken more time, it had been a far more enjoyable experience. “Good,” he said, and his voice came out hoarse. He cleared his throat.

A lopsided smile stretched across Jesse’s cheek, the bashful kind that meant he was surprised, a little self-conscious, but pleased.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.”

Jesse’s smile widened at him in the reflection. He dropped his head, shaggy hair falling in front of his eyes, and puffed out a laugh so small Hanzo couldn’t hear it – could only feel, soft on the nape of his neck.

Jesse began plucking the pins and clasps out of Hanzo’s hair and combed out the length to lie straight again. It felt divine, and relaxed as he was Hanzo could not help but lean into the exquisite pressure. His eyes slipped closed automatically, a wordless noise of contentment escaping his throat. Jesse’s hands paused for a moment in their ministrations, then stroked again, this time more deliberately.

The same happy noise escaped Hanzo again. It was lucky he felt too blissful to care to be embarrassed by it, because Jesse chuckled.

“That good, huh?”

Hanzo sighed. “_Yes_.”

“Yeah? Good to know.”

Hanzo lost track of time after that. Jesse stroked and combed through the long strands of his hair, massaging his strong fingertips into Hanzo’s scalp, rubbing over the sensitive, freshly-shaved sides and leaving sparks in his wake. They stroked Hanzo’s neck, came round to pass under his chin and smooth down his jaw, pressing away lines of tension Hanzo wasn’t even aware he was carrying. The position was vulnerable; Hanzo sitting, while a man larger than him stood directly behind him, deadly hands around his throat – it would be so easy to push in hard, to break, to snap, to choke.

Once, not too long ago, allowing himself to be put in such a position would have been untenable. Instead Hanzo let out a quiet moan, tipping his head back into the firm warmth of Jesse’s torso and arching his neck for Jesse to have more access, to do with as he wished.

He started to pant as the large metal hand, heated from Hanzo’s flesh, pushed up slow from the base of his neck, over the curve of his throat, the bump of his adam’s apple. Enough force to really feel the weight of it pressing deeper than his skin, restricting the airflow just enough for his heart to skip but without any threat of real violence. The back of Jesse’s other hand lifted to his face; he petted his cheekbones, ran his knuckles over his ear, brushed across his brow, down the hook of his nose and down further, ‘til his thumb stopped over the slight part of his lips. The tip of Hanzo’s tongue flicked out to taste the salt; he drew the pad into the warmth and wet of his mouth. And sucked.

Jesse bit out a sharp curse.

Hanzo opened his eyes. Jesse’s pupils were blown, wide and dark and wanting. Hanzo’s own were no doubt the same.

Jesse’s prosthetic retraced its path down Hano’s neck and dipped below the collar of his shirt. He cupped Hanzo’s pec and kneaded, a rough, rhythmic squeeze. Leaning close over Hanzo he buried his nose in his hair and groaned. “Baby-”

Hanzo was out of the chair in an instant and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him swiftly along. “My room,” he growled. “Now.”

He had plans. His brother’s bathroom was no place for what he was going to do to this man.

* * *

Hanzo woke early, alone.

This wasn’t unusual, nor a surprise. The difference was in the heavy feeling that sank through him when all his ears registered was the silence of his room, and it seemed loud, stifling; when his hand stretched out across the empty space in the bed beside him, and the sheets were cool to the touch.

He had woken alone his entire adult life.

When Jesse departed the night before, Hanzo had wanted to ask him to stay. The request was right there, held in stasis behind his teeth, all the potential energy of an arrow drawn back but not yet fired. It would not have taken much: one small, simple, four letter word. Perhaps a touch to Jesse’s skin. A finger, two, curled into his clothing and held.

Hanzo had done nothing.

He got up. He did not bother with a shower; merely rescued yesterday’s shirt from the crumpled heap on the floor where it had been tossed the night before, pulled it on along with some running shorts, and ventured from his room. Hanzo was not the only person in the Watchpoint who got up before dawn but he was perhaps the one least willing to be sociable at such an hour. He avoided the communal areas, met no one on the route down to the beach.

The breeze was fresh, pricked with a frosty bite wending in eastwards off the Atlantic. Hanzo shivered as he stripped down. He left his clothes on top of his shoes, just above the flotsam line where the sand was still dry, and followed the receding tide down the rest of the beach to wade into the rolling, white-tipped waves lapping at the shore.

Several metres out the seabed shelved off suddenly, becoming too deep to reach with his toes and keep his head above water. Hanzo took a deep, slow breath, and dived.

He swam out as far as he could go, until the one breath turned stale, until his chest cramped with exertion and the strain for new air was edging on painful. Then he rose, breaking the surface with a gasp to gulp in grateful lungfuls.

He had made it out beyond the breaking waves. Out here the only motion of the water was a gentle swell, up, then down, then up again. The air above water felt cooler than the water itself; in September, despite the early hour, the Mediterranean Sea was still summer-warm. Hanzo spread his limbs to float on his back, rising and falling with the rhythm of the water. With his head tipped back, his ears submerged, he could hear all the strange, hollow sounds that echoed through the sea, their origins mysterious and unknown – they could have travelled from miles away. It filled him with a sense of disconnection, like he had momentarily fallen out of sync with reality.

The sky far above him was mauve, turning periwinkle blue. The few drifts of cloud were washed in pink. The horizon was gold.

His skin tingled. The dragons had awoken, stirred by the might of the sea – water, after all, comprised half the power of their storm. Their restlessness itched in him as they pushed at their bounds for release; Hanzo inhaled deep, twisted and slipped underwater once more. Then he let go. The dragons surged forth from him, huge, jubilant shapes that spiralled around him, sending ripples of power out through the water. Hanzo swam with them as long as he could before the need for oxygen once again drove him upwards, and their glowing forms disappeared into the gloom. They were far more suited to the ocean than he.

This time when Hanzo broke for air some inexplicable twinge of instinct made him turn, peer back at the shore over his shoulder. The rocks on the beach may have been twice as tall as him, but from this distance they seemed small. The Watchpoint tucked into the cliffside seemed lifeless, innocent and unassuming.

And there –

Hanzo startled. A flash of red – a person watching –

Fight-or-flight dissipated into soothing recognition when the figure lifted something above its head and waved it back and forth.

A brown Stetson. It was only Jesse.

It took a few minutes for Hanzo to make his way back to shore. The entire time Jesse remained there, boots firmly planted in the sand near Hanzo’s discarded clothes. He watched, thumbs tucked in his belt, as Hanzo approached; watched him reach the shallower water and stand, watched the water cascade from him as he waded from the waves and up on to the beach.

Those eyes remaining fixed on Hanzo sent a familiar hot thrill right through him, but it was comforting too – the itching, disconcerting, out-of-place feeling he woke with was finally gone, vanished somewhere while he wasn’t paying attention. In its place was something else, building like a rising swell, an incoming tide, tugged by a force far beyond Hanzo’s control. Inevitable.

Jesse whistled a low, appreciative note. “Good morning, darlin’,” he purred.

The tension rising in Hanzo touched gently to shore, breaking into a smile, into a breathless laugh. “Hello." He smoothed back his hair. "I did not expect to see you here.”

Jesse shrugged. "Woke up early, thought I'd go for a stroll.”

“Mm.”

For a while they stood together in silence, side by side on the sand, and listened to the calls of the gulls overhead, the susurrus of the waves dragging the sandgrains along with them as they retreated.

Hanzo shivered. He hadn't thought to bring a towel down with him – but before he had any time to curse his own idiocy, thick, red wool draped over his shoulders. He glanced across at Jesse, but he was looking away out to sea, so Hanzo pulled the serape close. He wrapped it around his hands, up around his neck and jaw, and ducked his chin to surreptitiously take in the scent. Sandalwood and smoke.

Jesse shifted, digging the heel of his boot into the sand. He scratched the back of his neck. “Gotta be honest, I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”

“I did not rest well either,” Hanzo replied, muffled by the wool.

“No?”

“Nn.” The itching feeling had returned. He was tired, Hanzo realised. Tired of compartmentalising, of trying to hold these emotions at bay when they were so close to flooding every part of his life. Every part of him. He wanted to stop denying himself this one good thing. He wanted. He dared. He raised his head. “My bed was too cold,” he said, and fixed Jesse with a look so pointed and unambiguous he could not possibly misunderstand.

For a moment Jesse only stared at him. Then a curious light sparked in the depths of his eyes. “Too cold, huh?” he murmured, leaning into Hanzo’s side. “That’s a damn shame. We should do something about that.”

“Yes, we should.” Hanzo pressed back against him. Jesse’s arm wound around his waist, warm even through the wool. “I was considering a more permanent solution to the problem.”

Jesse glanced away, tripped over a hitched, disbelieving sounding laugh. “Can’t say no one’s ever invited me to be their bedwarmer before, but never quite so literal,” he said, the humour in his voice strained.

Hanzo licked his dry lips. “Would you like to be?”

Quiet. Jesse’s lips pursed. His fingers tightened on Hanzo’s hip. The low angle of the light caught under his hat brim, spraying drops of amber through his whiskey eyes. When he turned to cast them on Hanzo they were serious. Sincere.

“I want to be yours,” he said.

Hanzo tucked his fingers into Jesse’s belt. “Then do so,” he whispered.

He let Jesse pull him in close, met his kiss with no resistance or restraint, returned it without any shame. The rising sun shone fiery gold off the backs of the dragons as they crested the waves. Summer was over; the rest of their lives were yet to come.


End file.
